Jane Seymour (born Joyce Penelope Wilhelmina Frankenberg; 15 February 1951) is an English and American actress and author. After making her screen debut as an uncredited teenage extra in the 1969 musical comedy Oh! What a Lovely War, Seymour moved to roles in film and television, including a leading role in the television series The Onedin Line (1972–1973), the role of psychic Bond girl Solitaire in the James Bond film Live and Let Die (1973) and as Serina in the original 1978 series of Battlestar Galactica.

Critical acclaim came with a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series for her role in Captains and the Kings (1976). In 1982, Seymour won her first Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television for her role in the miniseries East of Eden (1981). She received three additional Golden Globe nominations in that same category: one for her portrayal of Wallis Simpson in the television film The Woman He Loved (1988), and another two (in consecutive years) for her role in the miniseries War and Remembrance (1988-1989). Her War and Remembrance role also garnered her a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Special.

Seymour also won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Special for her portrayal of Maria Callas in Onassis: The Richest Man in the World (1988).

In 1993, Seymour was cast as Dr. Michaela Quinn in the television series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, a medical drama set in the 1860s Wild West. For her performance in this role, over the course of its six-season run, she received nominations twice for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, twice for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series, and four times for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Television Series – Drama, winning one of the latter awards.

She later earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and, in 2000, was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.

Seymour also had roles in numerous films, including Somewhere in Time (1980), The Scarlet Pimpernel (1982), La Révolution française (1989), Wedding Crashers (2005), Love, Wedding, Marriage (2011), Little Italy (2018), The War with Grandpa (2020) and Friendsgiving (2020).

In addition to her acting career, Seymour established a nonprofit, the Open Hearts Foundation, co-authored several children's books and self-help books, and created jewellery, scarves, furniture, rugs, handbags, paintings and sculptures under the label Jane Seymour Designs.

Early life Joyce Penelope Wilhelmina Frankenberg was born on 15 February 1951 in Uxbridge, Middlesex (now part of Greater London), England, to Mieke van Tricht (1914–2007), a nurse, and Benjamin John Frankenberg FRCOG (19141990), a gynaecologist and obstetrician. Her father was Jewish; born in England to a family from Nowe Trzepowo, a village in Poland. Her mother was a Dutch Protestant (with family from Deventer) who was a prisoner of war during World War II, and had lived in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). Seymour stated that she had learned Dutch from her mother and the fellow survivors from the Japanese internment camp, who frequently spent holidays together in the Netherlands, when she was a child. Encouraged by her parents, who sent her to live with family friends in Geneva to practise her languages, she learned to speak fluent French.

Her paternal grandfather Lee Grahame had come to live in the East End of London, after escaping the Czarist pogroms when he was just fourteen years old. He is listed in the 1911 census as living in Bethnal Green, working as a hairdresser, after which he went on to establish his own company. Seymour's father Benjamin qualified at the UCL Medical School in 1938 and joined the medical branch of the RAFVR after the outbreak of war, serving in England, Belgium, Italy and South Africa. He ended his service as a squadron leader with a mention in despatches. After the war, Frankenberg continued his career at various London hospitals, including St Leonard's Hospital, Hackney, the East End Maternity Hospital, the City of London Maternity Hospital and finally Hillingdon Hospital, for which he designed the maternity unit. A close associate of Patrick Steptoe, he assisted in pioneering discussions on in-vitro fertilisation and published papers on adolescent and teenage sexual behaviours.

Seymour was educated at Tring Park School for the Performing Arts in Hertfordshire. She chose the screen name Jane Seymour after the English queen Jane Seymour because it seemed more saleable. One of her notable features is heterochromia, with her right eye brown and her left eye green.

Acting career In 1969, Seymour appeared uncredited in her first film, Richard Attenborough's Oh! What a Lovely War. In 1970, she appeared in her first major film role in the war drama The Only Way. Playing Lillian Stein, a Jewish woman seeking shelter from Nazi persecution. In 1973, she gained her first major television role as Emma Callon in the successful 1970s series The Onedin Line. During this time, she appeared as the female lead Prima, in the two-part television miniseries Frankenstein: The True Story. Later appearing as Winston Churchill's girlfriend Pamela Plowden in Young Winston, produced by her father-in-law Richard Attenborough.

In 1973, she achieved international fame in her role as Bond girl Solitaire in the James Bond film Live and Let Die. IGN ranked her as 10th in a Top 10 Bond Babes list. In 1975, she was cast as Princess Farah in Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, the third part of Ray Harryhausen's Sinbad trilogy. Filmed in 1975,Hell, Richard. The World of Fantasy Films. South Brunswick, N.J.: Barnes, 1980, p. 67. it was not released until its stop motion animation sequences had been completed in 1977. Then in 1978, she appeared as Serina in the Battlestar Galactica film, and in the first five episodes of the television series. She later returned to the big screen in the comedy Oh Heavenly Dog opposite Chevy Chase.

In 1980, she played the role of Constanze on stage in Peter Shaffer's play Amadeus, opposite Ian McKellen as Salieri with Tim Curry as Mozart. The play premiered on Broadway in 1980, running for 1,181 performances. It was nominated for seven Tony Awards, of which it won five.

Also in 1980, she was given the role of young theatre actress Elise McKenna in the period romance Somewhere in Time. Although the film was made with a limited budget, the role enticed her with a character she'd felt she knew. The effort was a break from her earlier work and marked the start of her friendship with co-star Christopher Reeve.

In 1981, she appeared in the television film East of Eden, based on the novel by John Steinbeck. Her portrayal of main antagonist Cathy Ames which won her a Golden Globe. In 1982, she appeared in The Scarlet Pimpernel with Anthony Andrews, and her Amadeus costar Ian McKellen. In 1984, she appeared nude in the film Lassiter, co-starring Tom Selleck. However, the film was a box office flop. In 1987, she was the subject of a pictorial in Playboy magazine, although she did not pose nude.

In 1988 she won the female lead in the twelve-part television miniseries War and Remembrance, the continued story from the miniseries The Winds of War, playing Natalie Henry, an American Jewish woman trapped in Europe during World War II. That same year, she won an Emmy Award for playing Maria Callas in the television movie Onassis: The Richest Man in the World.

In 1989, on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution, she appeared in the television film La révolution française, filmed in both French and English. Then she appeared as the doomed French queen, Marie Antoinette; her two children, Katherine and Sean, appear as the queen's children.

In the 1990s, Seymour earned popular and critical praise for her ongoing headlining role as Dr. Michaela "Mike" Quinn in the television series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman and its television sequels Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman: The Movie (1999) and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman: The Heart Within (2001). Her work on the original series earned her a second Golden Globe Award. While working in the series, she met the man who would become her fourth husband, actor-director James Keach.

In the 2000s, she continued to work primarily in television. In 2004 and 2005, she made six guest appearances in The WB series Smallville, playing Genevieve Teague, the wealthy, scheming mother of Jason Teague (Jensen Ackles). In 2005, she returned to the big screen in the comedy Wedding Crashers, playing Kathleen Cleary, wife of fictional United States Secretary of the Treasury William Cleary, played by Christopher Walken. In spring 2006, she appeared in the short-lived The WB series Modern Men. Later that year, she guest-starred as a law school professor on an episode of the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother, and as a wealthy client on the Fox legal drama Justice. In 2007, she guest-starred in the ABC sitcom In Case of Emergency. She also appeared in ITV's Marple: Ordeal By Innocence, based on the Agatha Christie novel. Appearing as a contestant on season five of the American reality show Dancing with the Stars; where she finished in sixth place with her partner Tony Dovolani. Then she guest-starred in "One Life to Lose", a soap-opera-themed episode of the ABC crime dramedy Castle.

She later appeared in the Hallmark Channel film Dear Prudence (2008), the romantic comedy Love, Wedding, Marriage (2011), and the Hallmark Movie Channel film Lake Effects (2012).

In April 2016 she starred as Florence Lancaster in Noël Coward's play The Vortex, presented in Singapore by the British Theatre Playhouse. In 2022, she began playing the title role on the Irish Acorn TV series Harry Wild.

In 2020, she starred in Ruby's Choice, an Australian comedy/drama produced and directed by Michael Budd, which follows her title role, Ruby, as a woman with early dementia, and its impact on her and her family when she is no longer able to live independently and moves in with the family. The role won her the Australian screen industry Network Award for best actress. The film was released theatrically across Australia and New Zealand on 3 March 2022 and on 7 March 2022 premiered in Santa Barbara, California, at the 37th Santa Barbara International Film Festival where it was a Nominee Best International Feature Film. Seymour's 'Ruby's Choice' made the U.S. premiere at the Burbank International Film Festival (BIFF), winning Best Foreign Film and Best Feature Film. The event coincided with the honouring of the legendary filmmaker Tim Burton. 'Ruby's Choice' releasing nationwide in North America on May 7th, 2024."

Seymour then appeared in the Netflix movie, Irish Wish, released on 14 March 2024, on Netflix. Debuing at number one on Netflix's most watched films list - two days following its release.

In 2025, she began hosting an Acorn TV/BBC America series called Relative Secrets.

Personal life

Seymour has been married and divorced four times. Her first marriage was to Michael Attenborough. She was then briefly married to Geoffrey Planer.

Seymour has said that she and Christopher Reeve fell in love while working on Somewhere in Time early in the summer of 1979. However, they broke up after Reeve found out his ex-girlfriend was expecting their child, who would be born in December 1979. The two remained close friends for the rest of Reeve's life, and he was the godfather of one of her sons.